THE OLD FAMILIAR FACES.

I HAVE had playmates, I have had companions,
In my days of childhood, in my joyful school-days,
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I have been laughing, I have been carousing, Drinking late, sitting late, with my bosom cronies, All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I loved a love once, fairest among women;
Closed are her doors on me, I must not see her-
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I have a friend, a kinder friend has no man;
Like an ingrate, I left my friend abruptly;
Left him, to muse on the old familiar faces.

Ghost-like I paced round the haunts of my childhood, Earth seemed a desert I was bound to traverse, Seeking to find the old familiar faces.

Friend of my bosom, thou more than a brother,
Why wert not thou born in my father's dwelling?
So might we talk of the old familiar faces-

How some they have died, and some they have left me,
And some are taken from me; all are departed;
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

TO A RIVER IN WHICH A CHILD WAS DROWNED.

SMILING river, smiling river,

On thy bosom sunbeams play;

Though they're fleeting, and retreating,
Thou hast more deceit than they.

In thy channel, in thy channel,

Choked with ooze and gravelly stones,
Deep immersed, and unhearsed,

Lies

young Edward's corse: his bones

Ever whitening, ever whitening,
As thy waves against them dash;
What thy torrent, in the current,
Swallowed, now it helps to wash.

As if senseless, as if senseless
Things had feeling in this case;

What so blindly, and unkindly,
It destroyed, it now does grace.

HELEN.

HIGH-BORN Helen, round your dwelling
These twenty years I've paced in vain :
Haughty beauty, thy lover's duty
Hath been to glory in his pain.

High-born Helen, proudly telling
Stories of thy cold disdain;

I starve, I die, now you comply,
And I no longer can complain.

These twenty years I've lived on tears,
Dwelling for ever on a frown;

On sighs I've fed, your scorn my bread;
I perish now you kind are grown.

Can I, who loved my beloved

But for the scorn "was in her eye,"

Can I be moved for my beloved,

When she returns me sigh for sigh?"

In stately pride, by my bed-side,
High-born Helen's portrait's hung;
Deaf to my praise, my mournful lays
Are nightly to the portrait sung.

To that I weep, nor ever sleep,
Complaining all night long to her-
Helen, grown old, no longer cold,
Said, "You to all men I prefer."

A VISION OF REPENTANCE.

I SAW a famous fountain, in my dream,
Where shady pathways to a valley led;
A weeping willow lay upon that stream,

And all around the fountain brink was spread Wide-branching trees, with dark green leaf rich clad, Forming a doubtful twilight-desolate and sad.

The place was such, that whoso entered in,
Disrobed was of every earthly thought,

And straight became as one that knew not sin,
Or to the world's first innocence was brought;
Enseemed it now, he stood on holy ground,
In sweet and tender melancholy wrapt around.

A most strange calm stole o'er my soothed sprite; Long time I stood, and longer had I staid, When lo! I saw, saw by the sweet moonlight,

Which came in silence o'er that silent shade, Where, near the fountain, SOMETHING like DESPAIR Made, of that weeping willow, garlands for her hair.

And eke with painful fingers she inwove

Many an uncouth stem of savage thorn“The willow garland, that was for her love,

And these her bleeding temples would adorn." With sighs her heart nigh burst, salt tears fast fell, As mournfully she bended o'er that sacred well.

To whom when I addressed myself to speak,
She lifted up her eyes, and nothing said:
The delicate red came mantling o'er her cheek,
And gathering up her loose attire, she fled
To the dark covert of that woody shade,
And in her goings seemed a timid gentle maid.

Revolving in my mind what this should mean,
And why that lovely lady plained so;
Perplexed in thought at that mysterious scene,
And doubting if 'twere best to stay or go,
I cast mine eyes in wistful gaze around,

When from the shades came slow a small and plain

tive sound.